Nick Canon as Will Shakespeare and Anne Armenta as Emilia Bassano in the UNT production of ‘The Lady Revealed.’ Photo: Justin Curtin.
The lady has been getting around.
Andrew Harris’ play, The Lady Revealed, premiered two years ago at UNT, where Harris teaches theater. The drama concerns modern research into ‘the Dark Lady,’ the supposed mistress whom William Shakespeare wrote about in his sonnets. In this case, the lady is Emilia Bassano, a published poet who probably knew Shakespeare. Harris’ play follows both Emilia and A. L. Rowse, the combative Oxford historian who first proposed her as his great ‘solution’ to the mystery of the Dark Lady. (She remains a very likely candidate but Rowse made a number of errors in his research.)
The next year after the short UNT Theatre Department run, The Lady Revealed received two free performances at Theatre Three. And then, last year, it had a successful reading at Covent Garden’s Bates Theatre in London with British actors from Dr. Who and Downton Abbey in several roles.
And now, The Lady Revealed will get another notable reading, this time in New York at New Dramatists. On March 16th, the cast will include British actors such as Sam Underwood (Homeland) and Geoffrey Beevers (The Tudors) as well as such American performers as Anthony Heald (Boston Legal, Silence of the Lambs).
